BCSC Warns Against Crypto Firm as Crackdown Gathers Steam in North America

The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), one of the thirteen provincial financial regulators in Canada, has added Eyeline Trading, which facilitates trading in digital currencies, to its ever-growing Investment Caution List.

The BCSC became aware of Eyeline Trading after finding that the firm had solicited a British Columbia (BC) resident and opened a trading account for him, without authorisation. The BCSC has therefore urged investors to use caution when dealing with this brand.

Eyeline Trading, operating online under the URL eyelinetrading.io, offers clients a range of crypto services including mining operations, wallet, exchange, trading and asset management solutions. A glance at the website in question also reveals that the brokerage provides no confirmation regarding licenses held in any jurisdictions either, which raises a red flag as far as investors are concerned.

After briefly explaining certain risks related to cryptocurrencies, the provincial authority noted that while some trading activities are regulated, these represent only a portion of the market, while a large portion is illegally traded through unregulated online platforms.

NASAA coordinates crackdown on crypto

Confronted with Canada’s watchdogs intensifying scrutiny of crypto ICOs, many startups are moving their businesses to locations more welcoming such as Malta, Switzerland and Eastern Europe.

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Dozens of entrepreneurs have already flocked to Zug, an affluent municipality in Switzerland, which hosted last year most of largest ICOs, raising a total of over $700 million.

As part of the crackdown, more than 40 state and provincial securities regulators in the US and Canada‎ issued a series of consumer alerts to raise public awareness and urge caution when investing in token sales. In addition, nearly 70 inquiries and 35 ICO-related enforcement actions have been announced during the last three months.

The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) is also conducting public outreach initiatives to warn investors in their jurisdictions of the risks associated with ICOs and cryptocurrencies.

Earlier this year, NASAA organized a task force to launch investigations into ICOs and cryptocurrency-related investment products. Those investigations have resulted in the enforcement actions against hundreds of initial coin offerings.

NASAA’s task force also found more than 30,000 crypto-related domain name registrations, the vast majority of which appeared in 2017 and 2018.